Next week, thousands of pro-lifers will gather in Ottawa for the annual March for Life. As they have every year for the past 12 years, they will promote respect for life at all stages, from conception to natural death, through prayer, Mass and a walk through downtown streets ending at Parliament Hill. Some MPs will attend. Clergy and at least one archbishop are planning to attend. There will be witnessing by members of the Silent No More abortion awareness campaign. Last year there were about 8,000 marchers. This year, there may be more.

If you’re a member of a pro-life group or Catholic media organization, or a regular Register reader, you probably know all this. If you only know what the mainstream news outlets carry, you probably don’t. Despite a large number of attendees and the presence of senior clergy and parliamentarians, the march has rarely attracted much media attention. Sometimes a handful of pro-abortion protesters will show up and make noise, creating a photo opportunity or two. Last year a police officer was injured directing traffic, but news reports still didn’t name the event that had caused the need for traffic direction. In the United States, the annual March for Life is at least 10 times as big, but the media situation is about the same.

{mosimage}These are difficult days for anyone looking for a job but as universities empty for summer, soon to be followed by high schools, it is appropriate to consider the plight of our youngest workers.

According to the latest figures from Statistics Canada, a staggering 357,000 jobs have been lost in this country since the noose of global recession was jerked around Canada’s economy last October. That is the largest five-month drop since the recession of 1982 and pushed Canada’s unemployment rate to a seven-year high of eight per cent.

Catholics and Jews care about the same world, pray to the same God, hope for the same resurrection and yet often live their lives as strangers to one another. That’s a shame. Most Catholics and most Jews wish we understood each other better. Redemptorist Father Paul Hansen and modern Orthodox Rabbi Roy Tanenbaum both know overcoming that separation isn’t just a matter of learning a few details of the traditions and theology on the other side. Understanding each other means understanding ourselves more deeply — knowing the roots of our Catholic and Jewish identities.

The Toronto rabbi and priest exchanged the e-mails below just before Easter and Passover — the two principle celebrations of Christianity and Judaism that fell within four days of each other this year. The e-mails are a fragment of a vast conversation between Christians and Jews that has been growing since the end of the Second World War — a conversation launched into deeper water by the Second Vatican Council. With the help of Christian-Jewish Dialogue of Toronto, they are inviting Catholic Register readers into the conversation.

{mosimage}In approximately one-quarter of Canadian households, care is provided to one or more people aged 50 plus.

Caring for a chronically ill relative involves physical, psychological, emotional and financial demands. Typically, caregivers experience a variety of distressing emotions along the way. They may feel guilty because, unlike their relative, they enjoy relatively good health, they have mixed feelings about being a caregiver, they sometimes lose patience, they made a promise that they would never place their relative in long-term care and they’re not sure if they can keep it.

Resentment may occur because caregivers have had to make personal and financial sacrifices, their relative has treated them badly in the past, their relative is demanding and critical and they don’t feel appreciated, family members aren’t pitching in or family members are critical of their care provision.

{mosimage}Most people in 21 countries, nuclear-armed and not, now support the elimination of nuclear weapons, according to a survey conducted late last year by the Washington-based polling organization World Public Opinion.

In 20 of the 21 nations surveyed — the total included Canada, the United States, Russia and most European powers — majorities ranging in size from 62 to 93 per cent favoured an international agreement that would lead to the destruction of existing stockpiles of nuclear weapons and halt the spread of nuclear weapons technology to countries that don’t have it. (The single exception to this pattern was Pakistan, where only 46 per cent favoured such a scheme.)

{mosimage}Franciscans from around the world have been converging on the Italian city of Assisi to celebrate the founding of the Order of St. Francis 800 years ago. But you don’t have to be a Franciscan to pay tribute to St. Francis of Assisi.

This devout, serene man devoted his life to battling poverty and social injustice and is honoured today as the patron saint of the environment and peace.

Eight centuries later, his relevance is undiminished. The causes he championed still fill headlines. The compassion he demonstrated still inspires followers.

{mosimage}TORONTO - When it comes to family finances, parents should include their children in discussions on how to cut costs, says Cynthia Kiy.

Negative talk about finances can put children in a very dangerous mindset where hopelessness and desperation can even drive them from the home, said Kiy, a social worker with Covenant House in Toronto.

{mosimage}In an address to the students at the Collegio Romano in mid-February Pope Benedict XVI spoke of St. Paul’s warning in the Letter to the Galatians that Christians should not “go on biting and devouring one another.” That was not the last time the Pope invoked this Pauline admonition. He did so again in his letter to the universal episcopate (released March 12) following the imbroglio occasioned by what is now sadly dubbed the Williamson Affair.

It was a vibrating jolt emitted by my BlackBerry that stirred me back into consciousness. I had been lulled into a semi-comatose state following four hours of unremitting speechifying by various representatives of the Italian Foreign Ministry and Department of Economic Development at a specially convened summit in Rome. The intrusive e-mail was from a distinguished Rome-based journalist who forwarded a pirated and unpolished translation of a letter written by Benedict to his fellow bishops, a letter formally released the next day.

{mosimage}Barack Obama has become a rock star of global politics, among the hottest tickets on the planet right now, but his support for abortion and stem-cell research made him an inappropriate choice to headline graduation ceremonies at a renowned Catholic institution.

The University of Notre Dame was dead wrong to invite Obama to speak at its commencement and to award him an honorary degree.

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Ages 6-8 Part 1

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Ages 6-8 Part 2

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